News item

Archive of: May, 2014

On 17th June, the Specialised Healthcare Alliance will be holding an event in Parliament to raise awareness of services for people with rare and complex conditions amongst parliamentarians and senior health leaders.

The event will consist of an expert lobby, bringing together a wide range of clinicians and patients to share their experience of specialised care with their MPs, followed by a parliamentary reception. The lobby is intended to demonstrate the scope and importance of specialised services, which collectively account for nearly £14billion of NHS spending. The individual testimonies of patients and clinicians are intended to bring these services to life.

The parliamentary reception will be an opportunity for the Alliance’s members, along with senior leaders from a range of health organisations, to join clinicians and patients in launching the SHCA’s Manifesto for specialised services.

At the initiative of its new Chief Executive, Simon Stevens, on 1st May NHS England launched a three month taskforce to conduct a comprehensive review of its specialised commissioning structures and processes. This will be led by Paul Watson, Chair of the Specialised Services Oversight Group, bolstered by an additional 50 staff members to work on the project from elsewhere in NHS England.

While the taskforce and its seven workstreams represents a good opportunity to set specialised commissioning on a stronger footing for the future in order to maximise the benefits of NHS England’s role as single national commissioner, the announcement poses questions over how services will be developed during the review period and on the future direction for specialised care.

The Alliance has prepared a briefing on the taskforce and will be making a formal submission in due course.